Mass Effect: The Voice Of A Dying Species
by TheMelon
Summary: A Race called the Kajeeneans were beaten into submission by the Protheans and forced to hide underground, developing war machines and super soldiers to combat them and take back the surface. But, they failed and the rest of the small population took to the stars in stasis pods, waiting until they were discovered or if they crash onto a planet's surface.
1. Chapter 1

Hello there people, this story will include a new species called Kajeeneans, a race that was soon to develop FTL technology, but were beaten into submission by the Protheans. I hope you enjoy, this is one of my first times writing something this big. Please leave reviews and give me advice on some things in the future.

**Chapter 1: Awakening **

**Planet Javen, Year 50,562 BCE (Standard Earth Time)**

**Underground Testing Facility KB14.**

**1750 Meters Below The Surface**

**553 years after The Great War Of Survival**

Lieutenant Commander Keen'Rahge jerked awake and scanned his surroundings. He soon relaxed, noticing he was still in the lab. "Do not worry Keen", said Doctor Aveeno as he approached the cot he was laying down on. "The Gene augmentations went surprisingly well, only one out of the forty subjects had severe side effects."

Keen sat up, "And those Being…", he trailed off hoping the doctor would answer his question.

"Muscle deformation, likely resulting in the deterioration of the cells inside of the muscles, it is potentially fatal." He replied.

"Damn Protheans, forcing us to brutally kill our own people just so we have a chance at survival!" He gripped the sides of the metal frame of the cot, accidently bending them. He looked down, surprised "Well, at least it works" He muttered.

"Speaking of survival if all else fails then we shall launch over 5,000 stasis pods into the void of space. Each pod is designed to last over a hundred thousand years. But another thing Keen, the 'Biotic Amp' as the Protheans call them has been successfully replicated!" He proudly stated

"Doctor I don't care, I'm not sticking a chip into my brain!"

"Oh…..well you see… we kind of…" Dr. Aveeno trailed off

Keen's eyes narrowed into a frown. "You stuck one in my head didn't you?"

"Well, not exactly." He rubbed the back of his neck. "We implanted a chip in your head, not a biotic amp of course but something to allow your mind to compensate with an artificial intelligence in your newly made armor."

"So I don't have mind powers?" Aveeno shook his head. "Dammit, I was at least looking forward to that, if I couldn't fry my brain of course."

"Don't worry you will still have mind powers, they just won't come from your mind is all." Aveeno took an object from his hand and handed it to Keen. "Put it on your hand and wrist."

Keen did as he was told. "So how do I turn it on?"

"Simply take your hand and point it at an object with your palm open. Then yo-

Keen looked over at a desk with a glass of water on it. He thrust his hand out and the glass of water floated and was enveloped in a translucent, but rippling field of energy. "That is amazing!" He pulled his hand back and the glass of water floated towards him, which he grabbed and took a sip out of. "What is this thing powered by?"

"An extremely small nuclear fusion drives in the center of it. And no, it will not explode and it only activates when you start to use it."

"Wew, had me worried there. And what was that about new armo- Before he could finish his sentence an alarm wailed in the facility.

"_Warning! The facility has been breached; I repeat the facility has been breached! Hostiles are entering th- _The announcer's warning was cut off by sounds of gunfire and a blood curdling scream.

Dr. Aveeno drew his sidearm, the block of metal that protruded from the handle floated in midair as the parts shaped themselves into the interior of the weapon. He took off into another room and pointed at a small, elevated block of metal. "Step on that platform! Hurry!"

Keen jumped off the cot and followed him, he stepped onto the platform and clamps found their way across his body and then then he felt some sort of rubber-like material wash over him. Something was jammed onto his head and he looked around, now noticing he had a helmet on. The clamps retracted and he fell onto his hands and knees. "Doctor, what is this thing?"

"It's your armor now hurry up and get to your pod!" Aveeno climbed into his own pod and the pod's door slammed down. After about 10 seconds the pod launched upwards onto the surface and beyond.

Keen clumsily moved into his own pod, his armor almost made his movements sporadic, moving to strongly and he tripped over his own feet. "Let me take over" an anomalous voice said.

"Who are you?" Keen Demanded. "I'm your artificial intelligence, my name is Shiaro. Now let me take over before the Protheans get into this room and blow you to pieces!" "Alright, alright you can take over." Keen's body moved with lightning precision jumping into the pod and closing the door. He leaned against the back of the pod and closed his eyes as the A.I. hooked his suit up to the extremely large amounts of drugs and sedatives of stasis. Keen felt a lurch of upwards energy, and then nothing as he was trapped in the world of his dreams for tens of thousands of years to come.

**A/N. So yeah, that was my first chapter. please let me know if you want more or if you hate its guts and want to kill me because of how terrible it is**


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry the last chapter was incredibly short, but it almost seemed weird to continue after a major change in time and place…. So yeah here is chapter 2.

**25,000 Km. Away From An Uninhabited Planet In Geth Space**

**Kajeenean Deep Space Stasis Pod 341**

**Year 2183 CE**

Shiaro reactivated himself as he was programmed to do if they came in close contact with any planets and made a long range scan of the planet's surface. Interesting results came back, there appeared to be metal structures along the surface of the planet, as well as a few orbiting satellites. The three other planets they had come in contact with over the years were all gas giants. This terrestrial planet with what seems like intelligent life shed some hope on their journey and it finally gave them a chance. Shiaro activated the thrusters and steered the stasis pod to land a kilometer away from the largest group of structures on the planet's facing side. 5 minutes until impact, he slowly took away the drugs from Keen's bloodstream; he would be awake shortly after they hit the planet's surface.

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Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya was stalking a group of Geth patrolling the perimeter of the building that was likely to be their platform carrier center. "How do you like this you little Bosh'tets!" She thrust her arm out as she activated her Omni-tool and one of the Geth went stiff and started walking in the opposite direction, while the others kept maintaining their patrol route. She commanded the hacked Geth to walk behind a large rock that was near her when she went up to it and calmly used an Overload attack on the unfortunate Geth platform. She quickly ran up to it and started frantically tapping buttons on her Omni-tool, trying to absorb any information still left on the memory core. She looked up and noticed the other Geth suddenly changed direction and started walking towards her, pulse rifles aimed in her vicinity. Her eyes widened beneath her visor and she started running up the rocky hillside. She turned around as they started shooting at her and managed to hack two Geth who started shooting at the other two. When she reached the top of the hill she looked back and noticed there was one out of the five Geth left standing out of the friendly fire skirmish. When all of a sudden a fireball roared over her head, her first instinct was that they were dropping Geth onto the planet's surface from orbit. She ran across the top of the hill and dove to prone when she saw a metal object protruding from the ground. At first she thought it was a Geth prime or destroyer, but the thing never moved. She cautiously walked down the side of the hill, sidearm drawn and was jogging from cover to cover. When she was about 50 meters away she scanned it with her Omni-tool. The results that came back were horrifying, it was nothing she had ever seen the Geth create which could only mean one thing. They had evolved and created a new method of orbital drop troopers. She stared at it, not daring to walk any closer when the front of the object blew off and landed ten meters away from it. If something came out of the object she couldn't see it, due to the small crater it had created and the Geth was likely to have been prone using the ridge of the crater as cover. Then, it stood up and looked around. It seemed to be taking in its surroundings when it suddenly locked onto her position. Tali Whipped back behind the rock. "Oh Keelah, I'm dead. I'm never going to complete my Pilgrimage. "She had given up hope, if it truly was a Geth and had spotted her, then there was a 100% chance that more were already dropping from orbit at that very moment. She gripped her handgun, preparing for the worst when nothing happened at all. She peeked around the corner of the rock and the 'Geth' waved at her. "What in the humanly hell is this!" She slowly emerged from her cover and stood there, thinking….

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The pod impacted the planet and Keen jolted out of his deep sleep and wacked his helmeted head onto the door of the pod. Keen rubbed his face, or his visor that was over his face. "Please tell me there are friendly intelligent beings out there that won't try to murder me as soon as I step out of this thing." "I'm afraid I can't answer that Keen, you're going to have to try your luck and find out." Shiaro replied. "Also I advise you don't take off your helmet or your suit any time soon." "And why is that?" Keen nervously asked. "Well being trapped in this stasis pod for... Shiaro paused. "fifty thousand years combined with the sterilized environment of nearly being in the mantle of Javen has caused your Immune system to weaken, of course your body can still fight bacteria, but any virus that enters your body would most likely be fatal due to the fact that viruses have a deadly potential to mutate….. A lot." "Did you say… fifty thousand years?! Keen sighed and pushed the shock down while he focused on something else. "also, how am I supposed to eat or go to the bathroom?" Keen replied, agitated. "The suit was designed for long, covert ops on Javen's surface, I'm sure that problem will take care of itself." Keen sighed and grabbed a block of metal with a handle sticking out of the bottom of it. The weapon was designed to change into two forms, a long ranged sniper rifle with rounds that melt any foe away at the molecular level, and an assault rifle that would pepper any enemy away with its larger bullets. Finally, he wacked the emergency release button, cracking the glass on accident. The door flew off the pod and he leaned forward falling into a 2 foot crater in the ground. "Why is it so damn hard to control my movements?!" Keen growled and stood up, almost falling backwards onto his rear. "The Power armor along with your genetic enhancements has greatly increased your strength, agility, and reaction time. It will take some time getting used to. Also your suit is equipped with an optical camouflage as well as a SHELL unit." "What the heck is that?" Keen asked. "It basically forms an extremely dense, but stiff layer of a mixture of alloys on the surface of your armor. While it restricts movement, it helps with resisting projectiles as well as blunt trauma." Keen processed that thought and then took in his surroundings and saw the reflection of glass against the evening Sun. The object jerked back behind the rock and Keen waited for it to return. "Did you get a look at whatever that thing was?" Keen asked. "Negative, but I saw the hand clutching what is most likely a weapon, and it had only three fingers." The A.I. Responded. Keen stiffened, the Protheans had three fingers, and maybe this was one of them far in the futu- The alien peeked back around the corner and Shiaro did a quick scan of it, and ran a diagnostic 30 times and decided there was no way it was a Prothean, all in the time lapse of a third of a second. "It appears this isn't a Prothean we are dealing with." "How can you be so sure?" Keen warily asked. "It's body build is extremely different from any known Protheans, but even if it was you could lie and tell it you have no idea what it was." "True, true… Keen waved at the alien and it slowly stepped out from behind the rock. He waved again, signaling it to come over and he put his gun down and slid it away with his foot. Of course he had his shields up and his sidearm was blending in with the solid Titanium alloy parts of his armor, but the alien didn't need to know that.

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Tali watched the thing put down its weapon and slide it away with his…. Assuming it was a he with his foot. She cautiously approached it, her handgun not quite pointed directly at it, but it wasn't pointing at the ground either. The alien was big, it was over 6 feet tall and it looked impressively strong with the armor over it. It had three fingers and a thumb which was odd, there weren't many species with only four digits, and usually it was three or five. She couldn't see the creatures face, as it was obscured by a navy blue visor. Now that she thought about it the thing kind of looked like a Quarian, but his legs were more like an Asari's or a Human's. The places that it didn't have the red and black armor were all a solid black rubber looking material. The black material almost looked….. alive to her, then her thoughts were cut off and it spoke… " _Hahje Bai lo?" _it seemed to ask. "erm, what?" Her translator didn't pick up any of what the alien said.

"Hello, who are you?" he tried sounding as polite as possible. "Uhh _eda?" _The alien spoke. Shiaro spoke up, "Analyzing language, I'm going to need more words than that." "Well hurry up, I don't like the idea of not being able to communicate with anyone in this time period." The alien cocked her head to the side, not understanding what he just said, then Keen gestured for her to keep talking.

"So you can't understand me? Great, this is going to be a blast." She mumbled. The alien grabbed his head and grunted in pain for a couple seconds and then spoke once more. "H- Hello?" He asked in heavily accented Keelish. "What the, how do you know my language all of a sudden?" She asked. He grabbed his helmeted head once more and Tali wandered if she was hurting it. "I'm s- she was cut off by him "There we go, umm… can you understand me?"

Forming the syllables in his mouth was strange; it was no language he had ever tried to comprehend. She replied, "Yes, but how do you know my language?" "Well it's because of the Artificial Intelligence in my helmet." The alien went stiff and pointed her gun at him and yelled "Stay back! I don't care if you're a new species or not, I'm not going to be anywhere near you when you're AI turns on you!" "Whoa, calm down! It's not self-aware!" he lied. That seemed to calm her down because she lowered her weapon. "You mean a VI? Oh you had me worried there." She calmly said. Keen looked around, "so, can I go with you? I mean I'm kinda stranded on this place." The alien folded her arms and said "Absolutely not, I have no idea what other secrets you're hiding from me but you're a ticking time bomb. So I'll pass on that." "But..Bu- "Warning, contact on the hill! I advise you to get down!." Shiaro but in. Keen looked up and squinted, his visor automatically zooming in and he saw a rifle in what he could only describe as a robot's hands. He immediately charged Tali and shoved her out of the way, an instant later his shields exploded off of him and he hissed in pain as the bullet entered his shoulder. He dove into the edge of the crater and looked down at the wound; dark purple blood was oozing out of a hole in between his shoulder pad and his arm protection. Keen turned his suit speakers off. "How bad is it?" He asked Shiaro. "The round was slowed by your shields and the thin layer of armor in the joint. It entered and stopped at the bone. In short terms, you are fine. But the suit will take a few hours to repair itself. " He knew all about Nano Bots and they were put to use in a variety of fields, including medicinal work. He shoved the thought down and his shield bar slowly climbed back up and the pain stopped as painkillers flooded the area of his shoulder. "Are you alright?" The suited alien asked. "I'm fine, do you know what shot at us and why?" "It was a Geth, and they shoot any sentient organic that gets near them." "Well they sound nice, don't worry I got this." Again he flipped his speakers off and asked Shiaro "How do I activate that SHELL thing?" And like it was magic the slightly glowing, but translucent shell washed over him. "Never mind I figured it out." He jumped up and grabbed his rifle then ducked back down as a bullet whizzed over him. He noticed how it was a lot harder to move quickly in this armored state, but he didn't care he was about to test his marksmanship. He tapped the top button on the handle and the gun's parts floated, the barrel and guts of the weapon quickly fit into each other like a puzzle piece and clamped back down into a solid form of a sniper rifle. The 'scope' popped up and floated just above the rifle. "What in the hell are you?" the alien next to him managed to get out. "I can tell you later, but for now I need to take care of this….Geth." He popped up and immediately his shields failed, but this time all it felt like was someone flicked him in the chest. He took aim and fired, the round slammed directly into the robot's glowing eye and the head basically exploded and turned into ash as the molecules were ripped apart by the rifle's deadly bullets. "That takes care of that, and now that I saved your life I can come with you right? Not just starve to death on a planet habited by damned robots?" he half-jokingly asked. "Hmmm, you have a point but don't try anything funny. Come on, the shuttle is over here. If we're lucky the Geth haven't found it and we can go sell whatever I took from a Geth's memory core." "Yeah but first I have some questions." "Look, we can chat on the shuttle, I don't really want a surprise attack to happen again." The alien started walking. "Fair enough." He caught up to the alien and walked next to her, he had so many questions about this time period. Were there other species besides hers? Did any of the other stasis pods ever get found? And what about the Protheans, what happened to them? He forced himself to be patient and continued to walk next to the alien, a long awkward silence took place until they reached the shuttle.

Keen stepped inside and started stripping off the heavy, outer layers of his power armor. The alien watched the process, eyeing the glowing lights on the inside of the parts of the armor that stops most of the trauma he would endure. Keen looked at the alien and crossed his arms. "If you want to know what I look like then you're in bad luck, my A- VI told me through the years I was in stasis combined with the horrific past of my people has destroyed my immunity to viruses as well as any nasty types of bacteria from space. I'm not taking any chances of dying from a sickness." The alien cocked her head again. "But you just had a suit breach! How are you not coming down with an infection right now?" The alien started reaching for a container in a pocket that seemed to come out of nowhere. "Huh? I don't know what the heck you're talking about, but I'm not gonna get sick just because I got shot." The alien looked extremely confused. And she put the container back in her pocket. She went over to the controls and started the shuttle up and took off. "What are you by the way? And how long have you been floating around in space?" she asked. "I'm a Kajeenean, and my name is Keen'Rahge. I come from a cold, almost arctic planet called Javen. And, prepare yourself for this one; I've been floating in space for about fifty thousand years." The suited alien looked shocked, as far as he could tell.

Have we been calling them the wrong name this whole time?! She thought. "So we have been calling Kajeeneans Protheans this whole time?" Keen's hands balled into fists, and then he relaxed again. "So I guess that means their dead if they haven't been able to correct you?" Tali nodded. Keen excitedly yelled, "YES, whatever destroyed them THANK YOU! What did destroy them by the way?" Tali was shocked at Keen's reaction to the destruction of the Protheans. "We never figured that out but why do you hate the Protheans so much?" she asked. He seemed to glare at her, something told Tali this wasn't something he wanted to talk about. Keen sighed. "The Protheans are nothing you view them of. They are savages and would probably enslave your race, that or if your people refused they would try and commit a genocide against your whole damned species!" Keen looked down at the floor. "That's what they did to mine; they forced us to nuke our own cities while we built underground shelters in the northern pole to hide from them. Out of the 8 billion people that lived on our planet, only about 7.5 million were alive and free in the shelters, the others were dead or slaves to the damned savages. We were down there for about 500 years… within the first few years we had a viral epidemic in one of the main corridors that housed a big chunk of the population. It was section 9, an arctic bird called a peearah managed to go down one of the ventilation tubes. A child found it and wanted to keep it as a pet. Little did he know it was infected with some sort of neurological pathogen. The bird died two days later. And what do they do with it? They flushed it down the damn toilet. We recycle our water and it soon got into the local water supply. Section 9 had 700 thousand people in it. Within a week, 400 thousand were infected. We immediately quarantined the section and sent anyone who exited it in the last week back to the section. We then realized how vulnerable to disease we were, it only took one deadly type of parasite and we were all dead. So, we put filters in the ventilation tubes and made it go through a series of decontamination processes before it entered the corridors we had. We then decontaminated every room once a week and I guess all of those precautions messed are immune systems up to all hell." Tali Grimaced, his race had faced almost the same hers had. Even the immune system problem was almost apparent. "Keen, I know how it feels to lose your planet to someone else. That Geth we saw, those have ripped all of our colonies, even our Home world away from us. No one would help us, so we had to take to the stars and we've lived there ever since. I also have the same problem as you; I'm stuck in this damned suit." Keen looked up. "I'm glad someone finally understands…..and then I wake up to find out robots have taken over the galaxy. Great. By the way, I never figured out what or who you were." Keen said, trying to change the subject. "Oh. Right. Sorry. I'm a Quarian and my name is Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya. But, just call me Tali. And the Geth haven't taken over the galaxy, only the Quarian's space." "Right, I don't really want to continue on that touchy subject, but when are we going to reach this 'Citadel' I'm going to die of hunger if I don't get something to eat. Oh and are there any other species besides Quarians to know about?" "You'll see when we get there, and there is some food on this ship but, are you dextro or not?" Keen cocked his head to the side. "What are you talking about?" he asked. "Your amino acids, are you levo or Dextro?"

Keen shut off his helmet speakers. "Do you know what the hell she's talking about?" "Yes and through a DNA scan and a quick search of what these people call the Extranet, it appears you are levo amino." "Oh that, yeah I'm levo why?" "Then you can't eat my food or you will probably die." "Oh…. Well, dammit. Well I'm going to go see if I can get some sleep so I don't use up to many calories and pass out by the time we reach the citadel." He settled down on a bench near the rear of the shuttle and quickly fell asleep shortly after laying his head down. He always thought of that as a good trait to have, he never had too many restless nights.

About three or four hours after Keen had gone to sleep they had passed through the 2nd relay and she set the shuttle on auto-pilot for the next and final relay to the citadel. She peeked her head in the back of the shuttle and made sure Keen was asleep. She then went over to one of his pieces of armor and examined it. Her thoughts screamed at her to not touch it but her curiosity got the best of her. She picked it up and started looking at the inside of it when Keen materialized next to her. She jumped and quickly put the foreign technology down and looked up at him and subconsciously started ringing her fingers. "I'm sorry Keen it's just that Quarians are really fascinated by technology and I told myself not to but my curiosity got the be- "It's fine Tali, although I probably would have let you examine it if you asked." Keen was leaning up against the side of the shuttle.

Tali seemed to have freaked out and was way to sorry about what she had done. He chuckled, "There's no need to get all nervous and act like I was going to yell at you for being curious about something you've never seen before." "Sorry, it's just that most of the other races see Quarians as vagrants or thieves and would likely to have yelled or even hit me for doing something like that." She sadly looked at the floor. "You kind of look like a Quarian with your suit on so expect people to treat you like a criminal." "Of course, racists…. Thinking their own kind to be better than everyone else's." Keen shook his head, and tried to change the subject. "So, do you have any idea when we will get there?" Tali looked back up at him, "We should be approaching the final relay now." Keen looked out of the window and took in all the beauty of space for the first time. "Wow, I never knew it would look like this… I thought the sky on that planet looked amazing enough." Tali stared at him. "Living underground must have been really difficult on your species wasn't it." Keen sighed. "Yeah, it was but I've h- is that the relay?" "Yeah, it is" she said as she climbed back into the pilot's chair. She swiped her hand across the holographic controls. "Passing through the relay in three…two….one.. In an instant they were catapulted through the relay and the citadel was in sight. "It's huge, and is that giant thing next to it a ship?" "Yeah, it's called the _Destiny Ascension_." If Tali could see his face, she would burst into a fit of laughter at how awestruck he was at space and the spaceships themselves. Then, a voice came through the radio. "Incoming shuttle, please have your docking registration and ID tag ready. We apologize for the inconveniences." The voice disappeared after that. Tali turned to look at him, "Okay how are we going to do this? You don't have an ID tag and it would be pretty difficult to explain how I found an ancient person in a freezer. Also you're going to need this. It's a translator so you can understand all the languages in the galaxy. Keen took it and said "Don't worry." Keen quickly put on the outer layers of his armor and looked at her.

Keen chuckled, "I've got that covered." And then he disappeared right before her eyes. "What the…..Keen? Hello?" There was a light thump as the docking clamps collided with the shuttle. "Shh! You're going to blow my cover!" The door slid open and a couple of C-sec Turians walked in. "Oh great, it's a damned suit rat. You'd better have a good reason for being here!" The Turian threatened. "I'm here on Pilgrimage you Bir-… officer. "That's what I thought, now come with us. We have some questions to ask you."

As they were talking Keen slipped through the door and sat in a corner, not daring to sit on a bench so one of those aliens might sit on him. "What are those things Shiaro?" he asked his AI. "Those are called Hanar Keen, apparently results from the extranet say they are extremely polite and never say the pronoun I." "Huh, what about that one?" "That is a Prothean." If Shiaro had a camera he would have taken a picture of Keen's face right now. "WHAT?!" He almost yelled aloud. Shiaro burst out laughing, "I'm just joking with you Keen." "Hah hah, so very funny. But seriously what is that?" "That is an Asari, the oldest member of all of these races. They are a mono gender species and can apparently mate with any race in the galaxy so maybe you can test your lu- Keen slapped the side of his helmet. "Oh shut it. If I had known they made you this annoying I would have ripped my helmet off by now if I could." "Well, you can if you want to take the chance of getting killed go right ahead." "I would but then people would see my bare head floating around and would probably cause someone to shoot me. So I'll pass on that for now." "No your just scared." The AI taunted. Keen ignored his comment and asked about another…..race? "Can the Asari be blue and….that color?" "No Keen, that is a human female. A new race that showed up around 40 years ago. You know what this is taking too long, injecting information into your neural net." "OW!" Keen yelled aloud and the few people that were close to him turned to find out where that had come from. They shrugged and kept walking. Keen sighed. "You don't like answering questions do you?" He asked his AI. "No, that's why I did that." "So the Turians, The Salarians, and the Asari are the top dogs in the galaxy? I still don't understand why they hate Quarians. Also they only have a population of only 17 million….. I think they have paid enough for their mistake. Along with these…..Krogan, I mean they stopped a god damn apocoly- "Keen you're ranting to yourself out loud." The AI interrupted. "Well when you put a bunch of information in my brain at once it's a little bit overwhelming. Ah, there she is."

Tali stormed out of the building and personally wanted to kill every damned C-sec member in sight. They had asked her stupid questions that didn't matter just so she couldn't step onto this station, but she was prepared for this sort of racism. "Hey" Tali jumped and looked over to where the sound came from and saw nothing. "What the…. Keen?" "The one and only." He joked. She sighed, "let's just go find someone to give this damn data to." "What is the data anyways?" The translucent Keen asked. "It's an audio file with some good information on a spectre named Saren. Apparently there had been attack on a human colony, Eden Prime, and this message caught him saying how Eden Prime was a victory and I guess that means he was responsible for the attack. This is going to be worth a lot of money!" She bounced on her toes, extremely excited. She might be able to purchase something for her Pilgrimage. "Excited are we?" Keen asked laughingly. "Yeah, I might be able to buy something for my Pilgrimage." "Pilgrimage?" Keen asked. "It's a rite of passage to prove our worth to the fleet, but really it's to maintain genetic diversity and to get raw materials for our ships." "Well you will probably get a good gift for the fleet if it really is worth a lot, now who are we going to sell this to?" Keen asked. "I'm going to make a call with a person named….Fist? And he is going to set us up with a deal with the shadowbroker."

"Alright then." They rounded a corner in an alley and Keen uncloaked. They then walked through another alley and two Turians and a Human male blocked their path. "Where do you think you're going?" The Human asked. "Just let us by and there won't be any trouble." Keen coolly replied. "Not a chance, you suit rats have some grub on Saren and we're asking you once, hand it over." "I'm afraid I can't do that. Now step out of the way while you still can." Keen threatened. "Little punk thinks he's tough." And with that the Human swung at Keen which he easily grabbed his fist, twisted it and brought his forearm down on the Human's elbow joint. Keen heard a satisfying crunch and the Human screamed in pain before Keen brought his right fist up and delivered an uppercut to his jaw. The two Turians pulled their sidearms out and started firing. Keen rolled into cover behind a dumpster and pulled out his own sidearm, a compact pistol that could be charged up to fire a devastating heavy caliber blow. He charged up the shot and spun around the side of the dumpster. He fired and the charged shot blew right through one of the Turians and hit the wall behind him.

Tali popped out of her cover and fired her shotgun, tearing through the shields of the other Turian when he returned fire and shot Tali multiple times, the last one cut her kinetic barriers down to a sliver and she fired another shotgun blast, taking the Turian fully in the chest and he stumbled backwards. The Turian managed to get his arm up and fire one last time before collapsing to the ground dead. The bullet easily broke through the remnants of her shields and hit her in the arm. Tali cried out in pain and dropped her shotgun then clutched the wound. "Lucky Bosh'tet!" she cursed. Keen emerged from his cover and walked up to her. "You alright?" he asked. "For now but we should get to a doctor, there's no telling how bad of an infection I'm going to get from this." "Before we entered the alleys I saw a sign that said clinic on it. I'm guessing we should go over there." Tali picked up her shotgun and put it on her back, immediately feeling drowsy and a beep emerged from her helmet telling her she had a fever. "Already? Keen they must have been using some sort of modified ammunition; I'm already running a fever." "Well then we should hurry." Keen said and picked up the pace. Tali's vision slowly started to blur and she got dizzier by the second. She didn't even realize Keen was helping her walk for a few seconds. They finally emerged from the alleys and Keen spotted the sign he saw before. The world was spinning in Tali's vision and Keen was basically dragging her into the clinic as she slowly lost consciousness.

Keen burst through the door as soon as it opened and yelled "Doctor! Doctor! Come quick, she's been shot and needs immediate medical attention!" Dr. Michel quickly came around the wall and helped Keen get her onto a hospital bed. "Stay here, I'm taking her into the clean room for surgery to get the bullet out of her arm." And with that she wheeled Tali around the wall and into a room. Keen took a seat in the lobby and turned off his helmet speakers. "Shiaro, where am I going to go if she dies? I mean she is the only person I know." "Well you could become the ultimate crime lord." "I'm not that low, also do you think she is safe in there? Because I am really, really hungry right now." "There is no need to leave the building, there is a vending machine around the wall in the room you were just in." "Oh, I knew that." Keen rounded the corner and stared at the vending machine. "Umm, I don't have any money Shiaro." "I'll take care of that, hacking in progress." Keen bent over and picked up the food container. He opened it and there was some sort of strange thing with two blocks of grain with meat in between them. "Shiaro, what is this?" Keen asked. "It's a human food, they call it a sandwich. Keen tore a chunk off and put it into his helmet's food slot. It passed through a field that would destroy any virus and then Keen ate it. "Not bad, the meat tastes pretty good." Keen repeated the process until the sandwich was gone and he took a seat in the lobby again. After about an hour of silence Keen finally spoke up. "I just realized this Shiaro, when did I learn how to move so easily in this armor? Last time I remember I was as clumsy as a drunk." "When I forced you to learn Tali's language I also forced your muscles to adjust to the extra strength of the slightest movements. If you ever take that suit off you will find yourself to be extremely slow and clumsy once more." "Great, also since no one is here I'm going to practice this….. Telekinesis module as Dr. Aveeno called it." Keen looked at a nearby chair and extended his arm and opened his palm, and the chair levitated. He then lowered his arm and thrust it out, causing the chair to drop and then slide along the ground. "This thing is so cool, I feel like a god!" Keen proudly stated. "Biotic powers are common in this time period, but they use their mind combined with an amp in their head to activate them. Not a device on their hand." "Yeah I know, its jus- Tali and Dr. Michel walked around the corner. "Ready to go Keen?" "Well that was faster than I thought it would be, thank you Doctor…. "Michel, the pleasure is mine." She stuck out her hand and Keen looked at it for a moment then grabbed it and shook. Tali was standing at the door when Keen turned and started walking. "Come on, we still got a job to do." Tali said. "Right, but we have to be more careful now."

Tali had a pounding headache but the medigel and antibiotics were doing their job well. They swiftly made their way through the wards, not stopping for anybody or anything. They soon came to an alley where a Turian and two Salarians were standing against a wall. Keen was acting as a bodyguard, his rifle drawn and in the assault rifle form. "Ah, you have arrived. I thought you wouldn't show up, your quite late." The Turian said. "Where's the shadowbroker? Where's fist?" she asked. The Turian approached her and started touching her. "They'll be here, where's the evidence?" She swatted his hand down and replied, "No, the deals off." The two Salarians pulled out a sidearm and Tali through a stun grenade at them, followed by Keen sending a few bursts into the Turian's skull. Then a Krogan, 3 humans and a Turian ran around the corner and started firing…at the Salarians. The two small aliens quickly dropped under the hail of fire and the group approached them. Keen spoke up, "Thanks for the hand, but I think we had it." "Who are you by the way" Tali asked the leader who was standing in the front of the group. "Commander John Shepard, alliance navy. He then said everyone else's name in his group then continued. We are looking for evidence to prove Saren is a traitor to the council. Also, who are you, and….He turned to Keen. What are you?" "I'm Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya and this is Keen'Rahge. He's a Kajeenean, It's a long story how about I tell you it all once we are out of here?" Shepard folded his arms and said "Fair enough, Let's take you to the human embassy. Udina will want to see you."

Shepard led them over to Udina's office and entered. Udina immediately spoke, "You're not making my job easy Shepard, Firefights in the wards, an all-out assault on Chora's Den do you know how many- What's this? A couple of Quarians? What are you up to Shepard?" Shepard was surprised when Keen didn't correct him, probably to make the situation less complicated than it needed to be. "I'm making your day ambassador, Tali has solid evidence that proves Saren is a traitor.

Keen zoned out as she played the message, he was too caught up in his thoughts to be paying attention to anything. What bothered him most was the fact that he was able to get a Turian and Krogan to work together. Then a simple question from Tali brought him back into reality. "Shepard can me and Keen join you on your hunt for Saren?" Shiaro spoke for him, "What?!" Shepard replied, "I thought you were on your Pilgrimage, wouldn't that be interrupting it?" "We do things for the greater good on our pilgrimage. What kind of person would I be if I turned this down?" Shepard nodded, "Then it's settled you and Keen are welcome to join my crew. "huh." Was all Keen managed to get out.

They walked out of the Human embassy and took an elevator up to the council chambers where they presented the evidence to them. Then Shepard was made into a Spectre which was apparently a big deal for being the first Human to become one. Keen congratulated Shepard as he walked by to talk to a dark skinned human named Anderson and Udina. As they were talking to him the Turian, Garrus walked over to him. "So Keen, where did you come from?" "Garrus, I think we should wait until we are in a less public place than this, for all we know they could be watching and listening in on everything we do. Trust me if people knew where I actually came from, I'd likely be swarmed by people and it would be a pain to get out of here." Garrus blinked and then replied, "If you say so. I want to hear your story though, that armor clearly speaks out that you were a soldier wherever you came from." Shepard turned and spoke to his crew. "You are free to go aboard the Normandy, report there within the hour so we can hunt down this madman. Then he turned and headed straight for the elevator, a chunk of the group following him. "Well, I guess I found somewhere to go rather than just annoy you Tali." Keen said. Tali chuckled, "Come on, let's get aboard the ship." She activated her Omni-tool and brought up the map. She synced it with her HUD and started walking. "Wait up, I don't have one of those so I don't know where to go." They entered the other elevator and headed down. The painfully slow trip was an awkward silence most of the way down. Keen broke the silence "So I guess that's twice in less than a day now." "What are you talking about Keen?" "I shoved you out of the way of a sniper bullet and then I carried you into a clinic." "So now you're bragging about how you saved my life twice in a week? And the second one doesn't count; Dr. Michel saved my life not you." "Okay one and a half times then." Keen joked.

Tali rolled her eyes and the elevator finally stopped. "Have I ever told you I hate elevators?" Tali said as they stepped out. They walked for a little bit and entered yet another elevator down to C-sec. "Yeah, I'm going to cloak through this part." Keen said. "I wish I could, the damned C-sec officers won't stop harassing me." Tali replied. Keen didn't say anything for a moment then finally spoke, "Well, how do you think my guns turn invisible too?" "I don't they have cloaking devices in them too?" "No it's just that…. Anything I touch will become invisible. He cloaked then she felt something touch her shoulder and then she couldn't see her shoulder or arm….or anything for that matter. She jerked back and immediately became visible again. Keen materialized and held up his hands. "Sorry I didn't mean to creep you out or offend you." Keen rubbed his arm with the other one, probably something he did when he was nervous or embarrassed. "It's fine, just…. Give me a warning next time." She replied. The elevator stopped and opened. They quickly walked across the room before any C-sec officers stopped them and they got into the last elevator. This time it was an awkward silence the whole way up. She was glad it was the last one before they got into the Normandy. The elevator finally opened and they stepped out, the last ones to make it to the ship. Shepard was addressing the crew, apparently Anderson was forced to resign and he was taking control of the Normandy. The ship was sleek and looked rather new, Tali could barely contain herself. She wanted to learn everything she could about the ship and its drive core.

Keen soon found himself aboard the hyper advanced spacecraft. He walked down the stairs and Shepard's voice came through the intercom. Our first stop will be a remote planet called Therum. We need to talk to Matriarch Benezia's daughter Dr. Liara T'soni. It will take approximately 30 hours to get there." The Intercom crackled off. It must have been late because most of the crew went either to the….sleeping pods or the crew quarters. Keen walked over to a sleep pod and got into it. He quickly dozed off, all the thoughts in his mind subsiding.

A/N: Yup. There is chapter 2 I actually put some hours into this one unlike the first one.


	3. Chapter 3

This is an update. My computer broke...along with a 90% finished chapter. *face desk* i have to rewrite it now so...yeah. there will be more.


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